List of languages that compile to JS | Hacker News Reader

List of languages that compile to JS

github.com

AKA a list of languages people would rather write than JS.

Is the existence of a BASIC-to-Pascal or C-to-Go translator evidence that people would rather write BASIC than Pascal, and C to Go? And there's been both Java-to-C# and C#-to-Java converters, so I guess people there are unhappy no matter which they pick.

A lot of them are newer versions or slightly modified versions of JS.

Which supports the point.

A lot of them seem like experimental languages that nobody would actually use in production

a graph of languages that transpile to each other was posted on HN a couple months ago, and pairs great with this list:

https://akr.am/languages/

discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17470161

JS is honestly just plain ugly and a pain to read. The same program I write in JS, I could write in C in 3/4 the time or python in 1/2 the time. Classes, this, functions, function factories, anonymous functions, etc. are counter intuitive and confusing.

Interesting. I feel the opposite. I can write JS way faster than C or python. JS is much more forgiving and less restrictive than those other languages.

edit: gotta love the downvotes for voicing your opinion. LOL

I have 30+ years of experience writing C/C++. And I implement applications written in JS a lot faster than when using C/C++. A good developer can be productive in any programming language.

> A good developer can be productive in any programming language.

I agree. I am just more productive in C and Python for most things over JS.

However, the tools and language that you use matter. Brainfuck is turing complete, I could program a full game engine in it, but that would be a waste of time. The language that you use will make a difference in the time it takes to program something, and the most important part how maintainable it will be in the future. Javascript is some of the most unmaintainable code on the face of the planet, and that is coming from someone who has probably programmed more in JS than in any other programming language.

JavaScript lets you code however you want. It gives you a million ways to do everything. This can definitely be confusing, slow, and overwhelming.

However, if you choose a paradigm and stick to it JavaScript can be great. I've been using it as a forgiving functional programming language and it's amazing. Cleaner code than python, easier to reason about (thanks to pure functions + immutability, which you could also do in python or many other languages to be fair) and a very robust ecosystem for web development.

I honestly feel the same about Python and to a lesser extent C. But I also know that it's largely a matter of exposure.

Every language has its quirks, it's just a matter of learning them. A lot of the ones you mentioned are common to all languages with support for functional programming.

I think it would be shorter to list languages that don't compile to JavaScript. I was not expecting to find Erlang or F# on there.

After using ES6/7, I do not find most of them useful (unless you need strong types)

I thought that TypeScript transpiles to JavaScript rather than compiles.

Transpile is just a word for compiling from one high-level language to another. It's still a compilation process, some people just don't like to call it compiling when it doesn't go to something like LLVM or x86.

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